She says she’s unco-ordinated on the dance floor, but in the rhythmic gymnastics arena Danielle Prince is a five-time national champion.
By Jack Kerr.

Credit: Danielle Prince.

Routine pleasures: Danielle Prince, 24, rhythmic gymnast

With rhythmic, you tell a story with your body. And with the apparatus, and the music. There’s such a huge creative element to our sport. It’s an Olympic sport, and we train 30 hours a week to do a 90-second routine, but it really is a performance at the end of the day when you are competing. The aim is to get people to enjoy what you do.

Perfection is that ultimate balance between being technically brilliant and putting on a performance. It’s that mix of being amazed by the skills someone is performing, but then wanting to cry at the end of the routine as well, because they told a beautiful story with their body, and the way that the music carried the routine. It’s a really tricky balance to find.

But in a sport like gymnastics, you can never be perfect. The judges will always find something. It’s a very hard task. There’s definitely a lot of critique. I’ve just had a weekend of judges’ feedback, so you spend eight hours in a gym with people telling you what you’re not good at, what you need to make better. Even the world champion spends a lot of time getting feedback. Sometimes it’s nice to compete and just go with your own feelings. That’s probably some of the most enjoyable times I have.

You have to be an all-rounder. You can’t be a specialist in any one apparatus. So it definitely makes training more interesting, having to devote your time evenly to each apparatus. But there’s still a lot of repetition. We spend all our days doing the same thing over and over again, practising something 100 times until you get it perfect. That definitely suits my personality. I’m very much a perfectionist.

This year our code of points has changed. So the judges are really looking for difficult skills with the apparatus this year, and I’ve been working on a couple of new little tricks, particularly with ball and hoop. I do a nice catch with ball that I’ve been working quite hard on, rolling it down my arm while bending backwards and turning around. Lots of cool things like that. My goal is to take that next step up.

I’m about to turn 25. In the sport of rhythmic, that’s grandma status. I have been in the sport almost 15 years, and that is quite atypical, purely because of the strain the sport puts on your body, and the amount of hours that you have to train per week is incredibly taxing, obviously. But I started quite late in the sport, I was 11, so I think that slightly later start has helped give me longevity in the back half of my career.

Rhythmic is women only. I’m pretty sure it’s the only Olympic sport, along with synchronised swimming, that is still completely for women only. So we are kind of sexist in that sense, you could say. And we’ll probably keep it that way.

You’re definitely hearing girls with more modern songs, songs that you’d hear on the radio. Which I think is a really positive thing for our sport, because the more people hear songs like that, that they recognise, the more they can relate to it. We’re allowed two pieces of music that have lyrics now, which has definitely opened up the door for a little more creativity. But if you chose something too wild, you might lose a couple of points for musicality.

I have an INXS piece, using “Never Tear Us Apart”. That music, with the lyrics, I really relate to. I’m looking forward to Commonwealth Games in 2018 with a home crowd, and am really hoping the Australian audience can relate to me and that story as well. I’m really excited.

No, I’m definitely not good on the dance floor. Everyone always laughs at me when I tell them that, but I think every person has a certain amount of co-ordination and I use mine up in the gym. So as soon as I step out of the gym, my co-ordination levels are just zapped. I trip over my own feet. I walk into walls. I can’t walk in a straight line outside of the gym. And I can’t dance to save my life.

I returned from Rio thinking I was almost certainly going to retire. I’ve been lured back for the World Games [in July], and the Commonwealth Games in April next year will probably be my last competition. After that, I will probably look towards finishing my PE degree, which has taken seven years so far, and also looking forward to staying in the sport, coaching the younger talented girls who are coming up.

This week’s highlights…

• Gymnastics: 2017 Australian Championships

Until June 4, Hisense Arena, Melbourne

• Netball: Swifts v Firebirds; Giants v Lightning

Saturday, 5pm and 7pm (AEST), Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney

• NRL: Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks v Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs

Saturday, 7.30pm (AEST), Southern Cross Group Stadium, Woolooware

• Soccer: FA Cup final – Chelsea v Arsenal

Sunday, 2.30am (AEST), Wembley Stadium, London

• AFL: West Coast Eagles v GWS Giants

Sunday, 2.40pm (AWST), Domain Stadium, Subiaco, Perth

• Cricket: ICC Champions Trophy – Australia v New Zealand

Friday, 7.30pm (AEST), Edgbaston, Birmingham

This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on
May 27, 2017 as "Routine pleasures".
Subscribe here.

Karen Middleton
The government ignored security agency advice on amendments to the medivac bill, allowing it to accuse Labor of undermining border security.Pezzullo’s Monday evidence suggests the government was alerted to the repatriation issue well before Labor’s amendments were drafted and it did not act.

Jenny Valentish
Advocates of psychedelic drug research are hoping the psilocybin trial for treating anxiety in the terminally ill, at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, is the beginning of a new acceptance for the potential of the field.

Royce Kurmelovs
While the royal commission into aged care has begun by exposing distressing cases of neglect, experts warn that it is the generations currently unaffected – and uninterested – who must become engaged in order for standards to improve.

Katherine Gillespie
Amid the spectacularly divisive response to Kristen Roupenian’s short story about a relationship gone wrong, the author’s conception of “Cat Person” as horror fiction was often overlooked. Here, she talks about reasserting her genre credentials with the release of her debut collection. “The temptation would be to turn the book into 11 stories about dating from the perspective of young women. So I was grateful that editors recognised it was a weird, dark collection of essentially horror stories. They let it be what it was.”

Jennifer Robinson
Despite narrow legal grounds for concealing documents under our freedom of information laws, government agencies routinely refuse to release them. Appeals are long and costly. Final decisions may take years and challenging decisions to refuse access to documents – as in this case – can run to many, many thousands of dollars. The cost is too high for most, and so the information remains hidden and unpublished.

Paul Bongiorno
No longer confident it controls the parliament of Australia, the Morrison government has shut it down for the next six weeks. And no wonder: it is reeling from revelations of cronyism, incompetence and profligate, unaccountable spending. Scott Morrison’s only defence was to accuse Labor of having its head in the “chum bucket”. If he is right, the bucket is his and he will have to do a lot of hard work to expunge the stench before the May election.

Ladislaus Meissner, also known as Joe Meissner, of “Love Boat” notoriety has, after a decent interval, resurfaced. Joe has moved on from his days in the 1980s as secretary of the Enmore branch of the Labor Party and former world karate champion when his putt-putt, the Kanzen, hosted riotous onboard parties, where politicians mingled with even shadier figures. Virginia Perger, a sex worker, said she had slept with the adorable Graham Richardson on board the Kanzen only to withdraw her statement, after much thought.

Perhaps once the Paladin contract story could have toppled a minister. This week, it was almost overshadowed by a parade of other scandals – the 2000 Centrelink robocall deaths; the Helloworld travel scandal; the revelation both Michael Keenan and Michaelia Cash refused to give witness statements to the Australian Federal Police over the Australian Workers’ Union raid tipoffs; the apparent leaking of security advice to The Australian, which was then misrepresented.

As the Federal Court prepares to make a ruling on the AWU raids, and it emerges Michaelia Cash refused to give a statement to the federal police over her office’s involvement, The Saturday Paper reviews the minister’s position to date.

During the ’90s there was barely a glossy magazine that didn’t feature Karl Lagerfeld draped in supermodels. His death this weekoffers a chance to reflect on the fashion powerhouse’s influence on design, style and feminine sophistication.

Peter Hanlon
Trainer Darren Weir’s fall from grace over the possession of electronic shock devices has stunned horse-racing enthusiasts both here and overseas. But could it help efforts to clean up the sport?

Karen Middleton
The government ignored security agency advice on amendments to the medivac bill, allowing it to accuse Labor of undermining border security.Pezzullo’s Monday evidence suggests the government was alerted to the repatriation issue well before Labor’s amendments were drafted and it did not act.

Jenny Valentish
Advocates of psychedelic drug research are hoping the psilocybin trial for treating anxiety in the terminally ill, at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, is the beginning of a new acceptance for the potential of the field.

Royce Kurmelovs
While the royal commission into aged care has begun by exposing distressing cases of neglect, experts warn that it is the generations currently unaffected – and uninterested – who must become engaged in order for standards to improve.

Katherine Gillespie
Amid the spectacularly divisive response to Kristen Roupenian’s short story about a relationship gone wrong, the author’s conception of “Cat Person” as horror fiction was often overlooked. Here, she talks about reasserting her genre credentials with the release of her debut collection. “The temptation would be to turn the book into 11 stories about dating from the perspective of young women. So I was grateful that editors recognised it was a weird, dark collection of essentially horror stories. They let it be what it was.”

Jennifer Robinson
Despite narrow legal grounds for concealing documents under our freedom of information laws, government agencies routinely refuse to release them. Appeals are long and costly. Final decisions may take years and challenging decisions to refuse access to documents – as in this case – can run to many, many thousands of dollars. The cost is too high for most, and so the information remains hidden and unpublished.

Paul Bongiorno
No longer confident it controls the parliament of Australia, the Morrison government has shut it down for the next six weeks. And no wonder: it is reeling from revelations of cronyism, incompetence and profligate, unaccountable spending. Scott Morrison’s only defence was to accuse Labor of having its head in the “chum bucket”. If he is right, the bucket is his and he will have to do a lot of hard work to expunge the stench before the May election.

Ladislaus Meissner, also known as Joe Meissner, of “Love Boat” notoriety has, after a decent interval, resurfaced. Joe has moved on from his days in the 1980s as secretary of the Enmore branch of the Labor Party and former world karate champion when his putt-putt, the Kanzen, hosted riotous onboard parties, where politicians mingled with even shadier figures. Virginia Perger, a sex worker, said she had slept with the adorable Graham Richardson on board the Kanzen only to withdraw her statement, after much thought.

Perhaps once the Paladin contract story could have toppled a minister. This week, it was almost overshadowed by a parade of other scandals – the 2000 Centrelink robocall deaths; the Helloworld travel scandal; the revelation both Michael Keenan and Michaelia Cash refused to give witness statements to the Australian Federal Police over the Australian Workers’ Union raid tipoffs; the apparent leaking of security advice to The Australian, which was then misrepresented.

As the Federal Court prepares to make a ruling on the AWU raids, and it emerges Michaelia Cash refused to give a statement to the federal police over her office’s involvement, The Saturday Paper reviews the minister’s position to date.

During the ’90s there was barely a glossy magazine that didn’t feature Karl Lagerfeld draped in supermodels. His death this weekoffers a chance to reflect on the fashion powerhouse’s influence on design, style and feminine sophistication.

Peter Hanlon
Trainer Darren Weir’s fall from grace over the possession of electronic shock devices has stunned horse-racing enthusiasts both here and overseas. But could it help efforts to clean up the sport?